Five 80-ft (20-inch diameter) pilings filled with 4 to 20 m of
fossil coral reef and sediment from the Pearl Harbor shelf were subsampled for
their contents. Pilings
were driven into shelf in water depths of 60 ft to 150 ft as part of a US Navy’s
characterization of
substrate integrity for outfall project. Twenty meters of 2-in diameter, lined
core samples and 25 bag
samples of branching and massive corals were collected from pilings. Sample
lithology, coral species
composition, and radiometric ages will be used to determine reef and sediment
accumulation history and
depositional environments during the Holocene sea-level transgression.